SM apartment, retail complex nearing completion

SAN MARCOS -- By Thanksgiving, residents will begin moving into
a low- and moderate-income apartment complex being built off
Mission Road where an aging shopping center once stood, the
developer said last week.

"We have it fully leased with a 200-person waiting list," said
John Seymour III, the director of the San Diego division of
Southern California Housing Development Corp., which is developing
the project with The Related Cos. of Irvine.

"We're on time. We're on budget," he added.

The complex, called The Paseo at Mission Pointe, will include
120 apartments, 96 of which will be for low-income residents, along
with 23,000 square feet of retail space. It is on five acres
between Liberty and Fitzpatrick drives.

The money for the $18 million project came from a variety of
sources including a roughly $3 million redevelopment loan from the
city of San Marcos that will be repaid with interest over about 35
years.

Ninety-five percent of the retail space has been leased, mainly
by business owners who were in the original shopping center,
Seymour said. They include a market, a beauty salon, flower shop,
clothing store, video store and Mexican specialty food store among
others.

Seymour and city officials see the mix of retail shops and
apartments near a bus stop and future train station as a perfect
example of "smart growth."

"If you live in the complex you don't need to own a car,"
Seymour said. "You can grocery shop. You can go out to eat," he
said, adding that residents are within walking distance of the
Civic Center and the San Marcos Boys & Girls Club.

The new project is one more step in the revitalization of the
Richmar neighborhood, Assistant City Manager Paul Malone said last
week.

"It was one of the city's earliest strip commercial centers, a
real eyesore by any account," Malone said.

Malone said the project is the epitome of smart growth, because
it has a high number of homes in a heavily traveled corridor, with
easy access to main transit.

The developer has rebuilt a number of apartment complexes in the
area including Villa Serena. Southern California Housing
Development Corp is also in the midst of renovating the Autumn
Ridge apartments across the street from the new project.

In the past, some residents criticized the city for
concentrating so much low-income housing in one area. Malone said
that the reality is that such housing is spread throughout the
city. He also said the low-income apartments in the Richmar
neighborhood have been the impetus for the area's revitalization by
replacing run-down and crime-riddled neighborhoods with new housing
developments that are safe for families.

"It is predominantly a low- and moderate-income neighborhood,"
Malone said. Building too many market rate apartments would "drive
much of the existing resident base out," he said.

The city wanted the new project to also include existing
businesses, Malone said.

"You don't improve a neighborhood by going in and destroying the
fabric of the neighborhood," he said.